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A STATION HUMBLED AND EXALTED. 

A DISCOURSE 

OX THE DEATH OP 

PRESIDENT LINCOLN, 

WITH ITS 

PROVIDENTIAL LESSONS, 

DELIVERED IN 

THE FAGG'S MANOR PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 

ON THIS DAY OF 

NATIONAL HUJIlLIATlOiY, 

June I<*t, 1865. 

BY THE PASTOR, 

REV. JUSTUS T. UMSTEAD. 



Published by the Request of the Congregation. 



WEST CHESTER: 

REPUBLICAN & DEMOCRAT OFFICE. 

1865. 



4 A DISCOURSE ON THE DEATH 

The scene lias ended, the cortege dispersed, the dirge has been 
chanted, the consecrated spot in Springfield retains the mar- 
tyred President ; the state moves on in its new historic develop- 
ment, another wields the reins of government. But to-day we 
meet to give national emphasis to a nation's grief, and affection, 
to embalm in its heart and memory the public bereavement it has 
sustained, to write as on a tablet more enduring than that of 
brass or stone, its abhorence of a national crime perpetrated in 
the fiendish passion of relentless fanaticism ; to mourn over the 
honored dead, and in the mean time to humble ourselves under 
the mighty hand of God, who in the gracious ordeiings of this 
most mysterious providence has afflicted us ; that He may in 
his manifold goodness exalt us to a higher moral and political 
gradation than ever yet attained among the nations of the earth — 
to commit to him the cares of the whole land, to him who has 
ever cared for us from our earliest planting on these shores of 
the new world, until we became, through the throes of our 
struggling liberty, a people great and strong, and who has sig- 
nally borne us along as on eagle's wings, and amid the surging and 
bloody waves of a civil war without a parallel in the world's 
history ; wrought deliverance for us, and granted us a long 
wished and prayed for peace in the maintenance of our common 
Federal Union, constitution and government. 

The great moral and political hero in the new made history 
of the Republic is Abraham Lincoln. Since the organization 
of the government never has such high honor been conferred on 
a public man, such eulogies pronounced, such veneration mani- 
fested, such mourning exhibited, and vented in bitter lamentation 
and tears. And never has such vituperation been heaped upon 
a public character — depicted, and caricatured at home and abroad 
as a hideous monster in manners and morals ; as unfitted by in- 
tellect, statesmanship and genius for the high position he was 
exalted unto, and especially at such a time as the popular voice 
called him to occupy the chair of state. There may have been 
much of political prejudice and animosity in this, and ignorance 
as to the real character, abilities, and motives of the man ; but 
in all this representation of him, there was not, I am convinced, 
one particle of reason or ground for it. 

A man's true character, excellencies, virtues, deeds, are never 
rightly known until he is dead ; never appreciated and under- 
stood until then. This is the case especially with public men. — 
Luther was the most abused man of his time. All the world, 
after the lapse of years, has acknowledged his greatness of 
character, his breadth of intellect, his mighty moral resolve in 
effecting, under God, the unffettered freedom of thought and con- 
science. 



OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 5 

Too few days have passed away since the assassinated Presi- 
dent stood in the vigor of manhood at the helm of state, to per- 
mit any proper attempt at an analysis of his charcter, or expo- 
sition of his career as a statesman, as the executive head of the 
nation, and as its military chieftian. This will be the work of 
future historians and patriots. "Those who come after us," 
says the great American historian and patriot, " will decide how 
much of the wonderful results of his public career is due to his 
own good common sense, his shrewd sagacity, readiness of wit, 
quick penetration of the public mind, his rare combination of 
fixedness and pliancy, his steady tendency of purpose; how 
much to the American people, who, as he walked with them side 
by side, inspired him with their own wisdom and energy; and 
how much to the overruling laws of the moral world, by which 
the selfishness of evil is made to defeat itself." 

However much men may differ in their peculiar views of polit- 
ical policies, and measures in the affairs of state, all must ac- 
knowledge the moral greatness and heroism of the man, as asso- 
ciated with simplicity of manner and ^onerousness of heart. — > 
The first time I saw him was on a steamboat in the Mississippi 
river, during the senatorial campaign between himself and 
Stephen A. Douglas, and which established his political reputa- 
tion, and brought him forward so publicly before the American 
people. The little Giant was on the same boat, with his friends 
and admirers around him. Quietly and alone Mr. Lincoln paced 
the cabin and then retired to his state-room. The naturalness, 
the plainness, the unobtrusive dignity of the man impressed me, 
and I little thought, at the time, he was to occupy so prominent 
a place in the nation's history. His naturalness of character, 
his simple hearted kindness of nature he maintained all through 
life, from the days of his youth till the end of his career. He 
was the same man on the flat-boat of the Ohio, in the forests of 
Indiana, at the village bar of the prairie state, and in the Presi- 
dential chair. Among the dignitaries of court, amid the flash 
and splendor of the metropolis ; as seen in the cabinet, as coun- 
selling with friends, surrounded with flatters and base preten- 
ders, greedy politicians, unwise advisers and hungry place-men ; 
assailed by enemies, and contending with political opposers at 
home, and intriguing cabinets abroad ; in working and planning 
to carry the country safely through her mighty struggle he ap- 
peared the same quiet, simple hearted, plain man, no less good 
than great. 

The times through which we have passed are never, I trust, to 
occur again. They seldom happen but once in the history of a 
nation ; and if we do not sympathize in any degree with them, 
we cannot appreciate the motives, the impulses, the purposes, 



t> A DISCOURSE ON THE DEATH 

the acts of the individual whom Providence places as the lead- 
ing spirit at the head of affairs. So with respect to our late 
Chief Magistrate. We must understand the great scenes in the 
moral and political drama of our country's history, and in 
which he appeared as the principal actor. No man, since the 
days of Washington, has been placed in such a position as he 
was. The risk he had to assume was more difficult than that 
which devolved upon him, and he so considered it ; hence we 
hear him from the first to the last invoking the prayers of the 
people in his behalf. 

No matter whether the great rebellion could have been pre- 
vented or not had a different policy been pursued. This is not 
the question. It came, and the whole country was involved in a 
most dreadful and sanguinary civil war. It had to be met, and 
Providence raised up one from humble birth, and rugged western 
life and habit to manage it, and bring the powers of the gov- 
ernment to a successful termination of the strife. And if suc- 
cess is the mark and evidence of a man's greatness, then he was 
great in the world's esteem. 

As the conflict is ended, except in a few minor points, we may, 
even at this distance, take in some respects a calmer and less 
prejudiced view of his acts, and see how in them all he strove 
to do right, and manifested an honest singleness of purpose. If 
he had been less firm of principle than he was, he would have 
vacillated, and yielded to intimidation, or blandishment ; more 
invincible in his individual will, he could not have acted as wisely 
as he did, and have accommodated himself to the ever shifting 
scenes around him, and have adapted himself to the vicissitudes 
and exigencies of the times. We must accept the stern logic of 
facts, and it seems to me, after the great events have occurred, 
the difficulties and dangers which surrounded him, and the im- 
minent perils which environed the ship of state, he could not 
have acted otherwise, and been true to his sworn oath, and 
country. 

I believe that he always endeavored to do right in the fear 
of God, and with a sincere devotion to his country. As an in- 
stance of this, I would refer to the Emancipation Proclamation. 
In the progress of the war, when he deemed it necessary as a 
war measure, and for striking a deadly blow at the power and 
root of the rebellion ; in speaking to a friend concerning it, he 
said : " I did not think the people had been educated up to it, 
yet I thought it right to issue it, and I trusted in God and 
did it." Comparatively few at the time approved of his course; 
many hearts trembled with fear. Subsequent events, however, 
evinced the wisdom and efficiency of it. And when we look at 
the act, and the expression, / thought it right to issue it, and I 



OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 7 

trusted in God and did it, there is something heroically grand 
in the sentiment, and will of the man. Amid all the vicissitudes 
and varied fortunes which attended our arms, he never wavered, 
but calmly trusted in the God of battles, and our God and our 
father's God for deliverance and ultimate success. This was 
the moving impulse of his soul, and the key-note of all his firm- 
ness, perseverance and expectancy in the progress of events. — 
When the rebel army invaded our goodly Commonwealth, and 
strangely panic stricken, all confidence seemed for a time to be 
gone as to our ability to drive back the daring, bristling foe, it 
is reported that he met the trial Avith his accustomed heroism, 
fortitude and trust in God. " I rolled on God," said he, "the 
burden of my country, and I rose from my knees lightened of 
my load, feeling a peace that passeth understanding, feeling that 
1 could leave myself, my country, and my all in the hands of 
God." 

There is something Cromwellian in this trust of his in God, 
though as different in temper, amiability and tenderness as is 
possible, was he from that remarkable man. The words of Car- 
dinal Wolsey as spoken with respect to this stern round-head, 
and iron handed Protector, seem to have sounded in his ears, 
and as a kind of intimation and preparative of his fate — 

"Be just and fear not; 
Let all the ends thou aims't at be ' thy country's, 
Thy God's, and truth's ! Then, if thou fallest, Cromwell,' 
Thou fallest a blessed martyr." 

How in keeping this sentiment with that which he uttered, 
and which seems as a kind of presentment as to his tragic 
end, as he stood under the folds of the American flag which he 
raised four years ago on Independence Hall, with reference to 
the declaration of our revolutionary fathers, " If the country 
could not be saved without giving up that principle, he was 
about to say that he would rather be assassinated on the spot 
than to surrender it." Heroic words, and for which he fell. — 
For the weal or the woe of four millions of black men, and their 
children he became the agent of their liberation, and thereby 
the weight of a two-hundred-year bondage has been lifted from 
their shoulders, and they have in the progress of civilization, 
"an equal chance " afforded them to rise on the scale of our 
common humanity, and failing to apprehend and appreciate the 
boon must lag behind. 

I have said that he announced his Emancipation Proclama- 
tion as a war measure. This is true in one sense, and not alto- 
gether so in another. He did it in his love of country to strike 
at the vital point of the rebellion ; but he did it also from 



8 A DISCOURSE ON THE DEATH 

another motive, and for another purpose. He was always deeply 
impressed with the great moral and political evil of slavery, 
and regarded it as an anomoly in our free institutions. He 
saw there were two forms of society, two systems of direct an- 
tagonism in our government, and which could not forever con- 
tinue side by side ; and believed with Thomas Jefferson that, 
" nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than 
that these people (negro slaves) are to be free." He was, there- 
fore fully convinced that slavery would be finally expunged 
from the union, and that without its destroyal. He thus be- 
lieved, and therefore he acted on principle. He was desirous of 
a homogeneous union, and accordingly labored for it. He also 
was moved in the exercise of this principle by the sentiment of 
humanity as well as patriotism. He never wavered in the assu- 
rance ot the faith which he entertained as to its extinction, 
and that in some way it would be accomplished; and this firm 
conviction and implicit faith caused him to hold on to the union 
with unwavering tenacity, and to the whole country as the lim- 
its of the union, and not to succumb to the feeling of some of 
the more ultra and vehement anti-slavery men, that the revolt- 
ing slave states might be permitted to establish their secession 
and government. 

As he acted on principle in this matter, and took hold on the 
war measure as an instrument to save the country, and to carry 
out a long cherished principle, he was able to act in a magnani- 
mous manner towards a subjugated foe. The cause or occasion 
of the rebellion removed, he sought like a true patriot to con- 
vert enemies in war into friends in peace. His generous nature 
also would not allow him to triumph over a fallen foe. His ten- 
der sensibilities gave a beauty and a coloring to his love for the 
vanquished, for the down trodden and oppressed races of men, 
and he had a heart full of human kindness, associated with an 
abiding love for the truth ; a heart devoted to the rights of 
humanity, and in sympathy with his fellow-men ; and here in 
this land he firmly believed was centered in the great national 
conflict the hopes of liberty, and the world wide rights of man. 
Therefore he lived and acted as he difcd. 

At this point of our country's history, an element of our late 
President's greatness appears in full view, and his physical edu- 
cation no less than his genius fitted him for enduring the hercu- 
lean labors assigned him. I speak more particularly with ref- 
erence to mark of mind and hand in the transformation of an 
unorganized militia into the greatest band of hardy and invin- 
cible veterans the world ever saw ; the organization of a navy 
which has executed wonders, and extorted from foreigners and 
the whole naval board of the old world their admiration and 



OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 

praise. By his genius he has established our reputation as a 
great military power ; and now we are in a condition to make 
all Europe tremble before our glittering unsheathed sword, and 
bow with respect to our blood-stained, triumphant banner ; and 
to enforce the great and long cherished American doctrine that, 
no European government shall be allowed to meddle with the af- 
fairs of this continent ; and to drive from our shores every foreign 
usurper, though sustained by the purse and sword of crowr. ed 
despots and emperors of mighty realms ; to assert and maintain 
the rights of man the world over, and to strike a Listing blow 
at despotism, and fell thrones of grandeur and oppression to 
the ground. 

Having thus conducted the country safely through the most 
bloody and gigantic civil war found in the annals of history to 
a successful issue, and an honorable peace, and in which the 
country's greatness and power have been developed, and estab- 
lished, with a deep sense of the sacred trust committed to him; 
exhibiting sublime moral courage, and resolute devotion to duty, 
and in which he obtained for himself a fame more durable than 
that emblazoned on escutcheons of honor and on monuments, 
and cenotaphs of marble, and columns of brass ; he fell by the 
hand of the foul destroyer in the midst of his glory. 

The two first weeks of the month of April will never be for- 
gotten, with their stupendous and thrilling events. They pass 
before us still like an historic panorama. Yes, they are his- 
toric events, " graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for- 
ever." Within that memorable fortnight the bristling triple 
jines which guarded Petersburg and Richmond were stormed, 
and the citadel of the rebellion opened its gates to receive our 
conquering armies ; and on its capitol heights was raised the 
national flag with its waving stripes and glittering stars. Gen- 
eral Lee, the hope of the confederacy, with the remnant of his 
army, the pride and flower of the military power of the South, 
surrendered ; Mobile fell ; Raleigh was occupied ; the tattered 
ensign was raised over the ruins of the fortification of Sumter, 
from which treason had struck it down ; all east of the Missis- 
sippi was about to come under the conquering, but kind and 
graceful shadow of the national banner, and the overspreading 
wings of the American eagle. All this, and when in the midst 
of almost intoxicating joy, the thunder tones of our victorious 
fleets and amies ; on that very night when our honored Presi- 
dent had reached the culminating point of all his hopes, and for 
which he had been toiling during four long and cruel years ; at 
the very moment of his profoundest satisfaction and in the real- 
ization of his brightest promise, a pistol shot is heard, and he is 



10 A DISCOURSE ON THB DEATH 

stricken down dead by the hand of an assassin. Startling events ! 
and solem and thrilling, as they are startling, in contrast. 

To thus murder the nation's head at such a time as this ; and 

when former opponents, and political antagonists where admir- 
ing his success, and magnanimity — when foreign courts were 
obliged to succumb to American greatness and valor, and to cease 
extending their unscrupulous aid and sympathy towards the ene- 
mies of our country — when the starry banner of our ancient 
covenant was fixed, we hope, for ever on the round tower of the 
capitol, is a crime so new and unparalled in history, that its 
guilt is the crimson dye of blood drawn from the national heart. 
We can, therefore, understand the violent shock sustained by 
every true American, in every city, village, hamlet, and rual cot- 
tage of the land ; the profound emotion which filled and moved 
the hearts of the people, and changed the rapturous hope of an- 
ticipated peace into the most inconsolable auguish. 

The scene has ended, the deed has been done, a nation mourns* 
our beloved President rests in peace. His name and deeds wiU 
ever live in history as marking a new epoch, a new civilization 
on the American continent. It becomes us, therefore, to en- 
deavor to interpret the awful providence, and to study the lessons 
which God intends we should learn. A passing view can merely, 
at this time, be taken, and only^some of them. It behooves us — 

1. To bow in filial awe before the chastening hand of God. 
We must rise above the agency of wicked and desperate men, 
and recognize the will and sovereignty of the infinitely wise, and 
just ruler of the universe. " By him kings reign and princes 
decree justice." " He ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth 
it to whomsoever he will, and doeth according to his will in the 
army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and 
none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou?" — 
" He removeth king and setteth up kings," according to the 
good pleasure of his will. As the sovereign Lord of all, whose 
dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom from gen- 
eration to generation, he knows what is best for nations as com- 
ing under his moral governmemt, and arranges with his unseen 
hand, behind the curtain of his providence, every thing in their 
history. No man ascends a throne or chair of state without his 
ordering ; and no man, however great and renoAvned, or ignoble 
and base, falls in any manner without his purposing. This is 
absolutely necessary, for without this supreme control in all the 
events and circumstances of his providence as connected with the 
development of his designs among the nations, he could not, and 
would not be the Judge of all the earth who doeth right ; the 
most High who ruleth over all. 



CF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 11 

In this event, as well as in every other which comes within the 
range of his providence, He has an end to accomplish, which 
doubtless will yet be seen to be right and good. And in it He 
would teach us that he can accomplish his purposes, and carry 
out his ends by any means and men as his instruments, let who 
will stand or fall ; and He says, " cease from man whose breath 
is in his nostrils." I work, who will let or hinder. 

The Greatest and best of men are but instruments in his hand. 
They do not make the times in which they live and act. The 
times make them, or rather God raises them up to take part in, 
or to be leaders in the carrying out of his designs ; and He fits 
and qualifies them for their position in the human aspect of af- 
fairs. When He sees proper to remove one actor from the stage 
of human events, he raises up another until his will is accom- 
plished — 

"His eternal thought moves on, 
His undisturbed affairs." 

When He took away Moses as the captain and law-giver of his 
chosen people, he gave them Joshua as their conductor into the 
promised land. And so He will in our case, though our great 
chieftain has fallen, provide for us another savior who will lead 
us over the rubican of danger into the canaan of our hopes. — 
He says, " trust in me," "tie still, and know that I am God," 
and in response we can say, " The Lord of hosts is with us ; the 
God of Jacob is our refuge." 

2. To regard this dreadful calamity, which God has permitted 
to come upon us, as for our trial and chastisement; and that we 
may be led to humble and sincere penitence for all our individual 
and national sins. What nation in so short a period had been 
made so great in population, resources, wealth and territory, and 
had God so nigh unto them in all that they called upon him for ? 
The little colonies of our borders skirting the blue sea, in less 
than a century had grown into great and powerful common- 
wealths : and in their outstretching enterprise and development 
had laid their giant hands on the hoary locks of the old Pacific; 
and it seemed to be no vain boasting, but the decree of " mani- 
fest destiny," that the whole boundless continent was ours, and 
that neighboring and effete States were in a short time to fall 
naturally under our dominion, and to be annexed to our Republic. 

But how great our sins, in view of such transcendent mercies ; 
how wide spread every form of vice and wickedness ; even com- 
mensurate with our boundless domain ; how diffusive the corrup- 
tion of the body-politic ! We were sowing the wind, but to reap 
the whirlwind, and it came with relentless fury sweeping over the 
land in the terrible judgment and scourge of civil war. God 



12 A DISCOURSE ON THE DEATH 

was angry with us ; the sea was troubled ; the earth reeled to 
and fro like a drunken man ; the heavens were darkened, and 
the fiery flashing of Jehovah's wrath were seen and felt. He 
called for a sword against us, and turned and whettened every 
man's sword against his brother, and plead against us with 
blood, that He might magnify and sanctify himself, and be known 
in the eyes of many nations, and that all might know that He 
was the Lord, and we acknowledge his name. Thus, until he 
had scourged us, and purified and tried us as worthy of his 
protecting care and prospering hand ; and then as the darkling 
shadows were fleeing away, the bright sunshine of his favor 
gleaming upon us, as if we might be forgetful, and unrepentant 
still, sudden as the thunder bolt peals in the summer sky, his 
voice is heard in awful terror never to be forgotten, and our 
national executive, and human deliver falls, that we might be 
humbled under the mighty hand of God, and tried in the seven 
fold heated furnace of his chastisement, in order, I confidently 
hope, to be exalted in due time, and to arise in a national regen- 
eration to a newer and sublimer moral and political life. May 
we then, as a people, listen reverently to this lesson, heed and 
improve the awful teachings of providence, that righteousness 
may be our exaltation, and sin no longer our reproach, that 
amid this chastisement and trial we may prove ourselves to be 
that people whose God is the Lord. 

3. To look from the hand of the assassin to the hand of God, 
and to cast all our cares upon him who careth for us, and with 
unwavering faith put our confidence and trust in him. Though 
chastening us, He has not forgotten us. 0, may his " loving 
correction make us great," lead us to cleave to him with new 
purpose of heart, who in wrath remembers mercy, and who fits 
and qualifies us for high and responsible duties only by subjec- 
ting us to the paternal discipline of sore trials and weighty sor- 
rows. 

Momentous questions in the political and social problems of 
our country have now to be solved, and Ave are called upon to 
commit their timely and beneficent solution to that God who has 
wrought deliverance for us thus far, and who can light up the 
horizon of all our difficulties with the radiance of the meridian 
sun, and illumine the political sky with more than its former 
splendor, create for us new heavens to bend over us with a more 
glorious, and resplendent brilliancy than the old, and evoke 
from the moral and political chaos of the past, and the tremen- 
dous throes of agony and blood through which we have labored 
a new earth radiant with more than pristine beauty, and wherein 
dwelleth righteousness. 



OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 13 

4. To humbly and devoutly acknowledge God in his protec- 
ting care over us, that in his seemingly calamitous providence, 
He has willed that this nation shall live. It is written in the 
decrees of heaven, as well as by the finger of God on the mighty 
rivers and mountains, and the whole face of the land, and deeply 
graven in the hearts of the people, that this is one country, and 
to be forever under the same Constitution, and general system 
of laws ; that this grand American idea cannot be ignored, nor 
•obliterated from the geography, the instincts, and the affections 
of the people, and that no civil war, no conspiracies, no seditious 
plots can overthrow this Government. 

Stirred to the inmost life of the nation, lashed into weeping 
sorrow and rage at the time when our chieftain fell, how soon the 
sublime impulse of memory for the dead, and the duty which we 
owe to the cause of popnlar government throughout the world 
calmed our passion, and we would not allow the sudden, and 
awful crime which had taken the life of the President of the 
United States, to disarrange or disturb the regular and smooth 
course of public affairs. In its bereaved grandeur, the Uepulic 
moved on. Praped in the habiliments of an unprecedented 
mourning, this great country sustained itself with a sublime com- 
posure, and magnanimity. Arising from the sack-cloth, and 
ashes of unexampled grief she sprang forth in the beauty, and 
strength, and hope of youth, and has most signally proven to 
the world, as one well says, the quiet energy, and the durability 
of institutions growing out of the reason and the affections of 
the people. 

It was daring madness to assassinate the President — madness 
not of the agent or instrument of the deed merely, but of all 
those who encouraged, and assisted him in the accomplishment 
of the plan ; for what could be its result, but the certain dis- 
covery and death of the instrument and his accomplices; and 
what but infinite disadvantage to the cause of which the terrible 
plot was the exponent. 

And how marked the Providence in the quick finding of the 
assassin, his sudden death, as the individual penalty of the crime ; 
the mysterious linkings of the chain which brought the accom- 
plices of the whole wide-reaching conspiracy to the tribunal of 
retributive justice. 

Another view of the matter is this, and in it there is a lesson 
to be impressed on the minds of the American people. How su- 
premely absurd a thing is assassination, as a remedy for a political 
grievance, real or fancied, in a country and government like ours. 
In fact it never achieves what it aims at; and such a despicable 
crime as this seldom looks ahead at consequences. History tells 
us of the assination of Caesar, of Henry the 4th, of France ; of 



14 A DISCOURSE ON THE DEATH 

dUr 

of William, the silent, the celebrated stafc^-holder of Holland 
and Zealand; of Gustavus, of Sweeden, and many others; but 
in no instance was the end had in view attained by such Cain- 
like wretchedness. How blindly the banded conspirators miscal- 
culated as to such a foul deed helping the cause of rebellion, or 
weakening or disuniting the people of the North. It had, natur- 
ally, just the contrary effect. It aroused the whole country, and 
united the hearts and the hands of the people, and made them 
resolve, and swear on the altar of their country, and over the 
mangled body of their dead President, to maintain this Union, 
one and inseparable. Such a providence was needed to allay 
partizan biterness, and to attribute to a common citzenship the 
sentiment of patriotism — needed to reveal to the misguided of 
our countrymen the wickedness of their leaders, and the crime 
into which they were alluring them in attempting to destroy the 
national life, and in so doing to pull down over their own heads 
as well as ours, the fabiic of liberty, and with it the hopes of an 
oppressed and yearning humanity throughout the world. 

View the murder of our late President as you will, from any 
political stand-point, and especially at the time ; he fell as a 
martyr to the Union. His death was meant to dissever it be- 
yond repair. Thanks to a generous, though terrible Providence, 
it has been made the occasion of binding it more closely and 
firmly than ever. In the language of another — " The blow aimed 
at him, was aimed not at the native of Kentucky, not at the cit- 
izen of Illinois, but at the man, who, as President, in the execu- 
tive branch of the government, stood as the representative of 
every man in the United States. The object of the crime was 
the life of the whole people. From Maine to the south-west 
boundary on the Pacific, it makes us one. The country may 
have needed an imperishable grief to touch its inmost feeling. — 
The grave that receives the remains of Lincoln, receives the 
martyr to the Union ; 'the monument which will rise over his 
body, will bear witness to the Union ; his endearing memory 
will assist during countless ages, to bind the States together, and 
to incite to the love of our one undivided, individual country. 
Peace to the ashes of our departed friend, the friend of his 
country, and his race. Happy was his .life, for he was the re- 
storer of the Republic ; he was happy in his death, for the man- 
ner of his end will plead forever for the union of the States, 
and the freedom of man." 

5. To teach us to abhor treason, insurrection, conspiracy in 
every form — to reveal to us the bane of the spirit which begat, 
fostered, and accomplished for a time the disruption of the 
country ; and that every thing connected with such a foul spirit 



OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 15 

should be exorcised, and made in some suitable way odious in 
the sight of all men — to loathe, and hate treason and rebellion 
"with a perfect hatred, because they are sins against God, and 
crimes against the State. 

But while this is one of the plain teachings of this remark- 
able Providence, let not the cruel murder of our President seek 
to be avenged by an indiscriminate denunciation of all who 
have been in rebellion against the government. Let the law 
deal with the unscrupulous leaders, and agents of the grand 
conspiracy, which magnified itself into all the horrors of a civil 
war — deal with them according to the majesty, and rectitude of 
its demands — no less and no more. Towards the masses of the 
people, the rank and file of the army, let the same lenient and 
magnanimous spirit of our lamented President prevail. In this 
way we can best honor him, and hope for a speedier amity, heal- 
ing of the nation's wounds, and the reconstruction of the gov- 
ernment. The fact rises up in solemn majesty and grandeur be- 
fore us, that we must live together, and become again, for all 
the purposes of the Union, one people. The foe has fallen ; let 
us not, like the coward Falstaff, stab again the dead body of a 
Percy. The generous, and magnanimous treatment of Israel 
towards the Benjaminites is worthy of our imitation, and this 
when '' there was no king in Israel, and every man did that 
which was right in his own eyes." We have read of Israel's 
anguish in repeated defeats, and how at last through fastings, 
weepings, and prayer, God was with them, and gave them such 
victories over their brethren — how they smote them at Gibeah, 
pursued them from place to place, turned upon them again and 
again, and smote them with the edge of the sword, as well the 
men of every city, as the beast, and all that came to hand ; and 
set on fire all the cities that were found. All over, Benjamin 
vanquished, and almost destroyed, conquering Israel in all his 
people " came to the house of God, and abode there till even 
before <Jod, and lifted up their voices, and wept sore ; and said 
Lord God of Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel, that 
there should be to-day one tribe lacking in Israel." They spake 
peaceably to the Benjaminites remaining, fell on a singular plan 
to furnish them with wives, which we have no occasion to imitate, 
and said, " there must be an inheritance for them that be es- 
caped of Benjamin, that a tribe be not destroyed out of Israel." 
So we want every State with its tribe and people, chastened and 
redeemed. 

It is now the duty of a christian people to make every honor- 
able and magnanimous effort to allay animosity, ami bitterness of 
feeling engendered by the war, and to act like the blessed Master, 
in striving to do them good — to show them that we fought against 



16 A DISCOURSE ON THE DEATH 

them, not because we hated them, or warned their lands and sunny 
clime to dwell in, but because we would not allow the country to 
be severed, and their liberties and our own destroy eel — that one 
government, and one Constitution, and one system of laws, and 
obedience and fealty to the same are the induitable marks of 
nature and Providence on this land, and that we must be forever 
a homogeneous people and Republic. 

The sword has decided, I trust, for all time to come, the ques- 
tions which no other arbitrament could decide, namely, Seces- 
sion and Slavery. The war was an absolute necessity; no human 
agency could have averted it. It is only superficial minds which 
believe that wars may be undertaken or averted by the mere will 
of nations. The slavery question was of a nature to generate 
a constant animosity, and that of secession, which but for the 
other would have been dormant, was thus kept alive, and brought 
nearer and nearer every day to the test of actual trial. These 
two questions vexing and disturbing the country, admitted of 
no other solution than the wager of battle. It is gratifying to 
find that many leading men of the South are beginning to take 
this view of the matter. In a recent number of the Richmond 
Times, sent me by a relative in the army, I find a leader bear- 
ing upon this very point. Whatever any man's preconceived 
motiv es may be respecting these two questions, and will look 
back on the history of the angry controversy, as the facts in 
the case have been developing themselves, and have finally be- 
come fixed in the blood and treasure of the land, is no philoso- 
pher if he cannot see that the civil war, which has rocked the 
the very foundations of the government was a necessity ; could 
not have been prevented by the mere will of the nation — that it 
was an inevitable phenomenon in the moral world, as the storm 
or earthquake is in the physical, and designed to give the nation 
a new birth. 

The tirce seemed to have come in the nature of things, and 
the providence of God, when this nation must become a homo- 
geneity in all her institutions; and all wise men must accept the 
facts in the case. It will not be long before the South discovers 
the same thing, finds out that defeat was her regeneration ; and 
becoming wiser and better by the terrible lesson of war will soon 
adjust her institutions in harmony with our own, and in a decade 
of years become more populous and prosperous than ever, with 
thrice blooming savannas, cultivated fields, and teeming cities of 
trade, commerce and art. Then let us aid our defeated country- 
men by our generosity and magnanimity in their conformation 
to the genius of our common government, that we may be one 
people with the same civilization, the same political and social 
system. 



OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 17 

The converting of four millions of slaves into freedmen is a 
question of vast proportions and highly problematical. Many 
are greatly exercised about it, but with all its difficulties and per- 
plexities, it does not very much trouble me ; for I feel assured 
that common sense, common instincts, and common safety will 
devise a way for their suitable education, and salutary control. 
The morality of the question must be left to the exercise of 
philanthropy and religion. The government cannot afford to 
take time in the development of the national resources and its 
onward march to turn itself into a vast eleemosynary institution 
for the good of either the white or the black race. The latter 
must press on to the goal set before them, " life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness ." If they cannot stand before the progress 
of a white civilization, like the Red men of the aboriginal 
forests, they must melt away. And if they cannot live in the 
same government with us, and it is demonstrated by experience 
that, in their new life and condition, they have a peculiar nature, 
habit, and opinion deleterious to the public weal, like the Indian 
tribes they will be colonized, deported to other localities, or to 
their own land. Nothing must hinder or come in the way of the 
nation in its progress, the phoenix of our hope rising from its 
ashes in spreading abroad, and aloft its mighty wings. Every 
obstacle must be removed for the development and progress of 
the great Anglo-American race on this continent. Regenerated, 
East, West, North and South, we are to be one homogeneous, 
united people — the immortal Republic of the world. 

The curtain of the future rises, and a living, active people are 
now to be the actors in the scenes. Here virtue and liberty are 
to reign ; here the nations of the earth are to come and learn 
the alphabet of political science, and how a free people are 
strong in their own government, and can withstand such civil 
shocks and revolutions as would demolish thrones, and convert 
civil war, and revolution into anarchy in the old world. 

Trained in the stern and vigorous school of unexampled war, 
we have become, in both sections, a great military people ; and 
if here on these shores the battle of humanity is still to be fought 
in its deliverance ; if here is to be the Armageddon of conflict, 
and where the whole world of despotic power is to be gathered 
to the great battle of that great day of God Almighty, let it 
so be : He will be with us, and we shall overcome, by the blood 
of the Lamb, and the kingdoms of this world become the king- 
doms of our Lord and of his Christ ; and the promised republic 
of Immanuel be set up in all its millennial glory in the earth, 
and all things be put under his feet. 



18 A DISCOURSE ON THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

" North, with all thy vales of green ; 

South, with all thy palms ; 
From peopled towns and fields between, 

Uplift the voice of psalms ; 
Raise ancient East ! the anthem hiffh, 
And let the youthful West reply. 

Lo ! in the clouds of heaven appears 

God's well beloved Son ; 
He brings a train of brighter years, 

His kingdom is begun. 
He comes a guilty world to bless, 
With mercy, truth, and righteousness. 

Father ! haste the promised hour, 

When at his feet shall lie 
All rule, authority and power, 

Beneath the ample sky; 
When He shall reign from pole to pole, 
The Lord of every human soul." 

Let us, then, confidently and hopefully humble ourselves un- 
der the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt us, as a nation, 
in due time ; casting all our cares upon him, for He careth for 
us — follow the instincts of a new birth, and a new life, and thus 
afford a new, a noble, and a sublime spectacle to mankind. 



LB S '12 



